Connecticut western news., 1887-07-27
A TRIGHTFUL SCENE.
Italian Track Laborers Slaughtered bY an Express Train.

The Chicago express on the Erie road, due in Jersey City at o'clock Thursday, the 2lst, ran into gang of forty Italian workmen, who were engaged in ballasting tho tracks just above Hohokus, killing ten of them almost instantly and severely wounding six more. For a year past the company has had from 800 to 1.8O0 Italians at work along the Toad; putting broken rock under the ties, The work has been completed as far Hohokus and be- yond, but small stretch remained to be conl- pleted at and near g. cut half Aaile beyond the station. In the cut which has banks about thirty feet above the roadbed, the track bends around sharp curve from the east until the cut is passed, when it runs directly south toward Jersey City for a few rods, and then bends around to the west before reaching Ho- hokus station. The portion of the track that runs due north and south is over an embank- ment about twenty feet high Sylvan Lake and the home of Elijah Rosencranz being in plain sight to the west. It was on this stretch over the embankment where the gang were at work and the accident occurred The distance from the men to the end of the cut to the north of them was about 15O yards, though the 5ngi- neer of train from the north could sec them perhaps when 175 yards away. There is a down grade from the cut to the embankment.
 The men had been put to work about o'clock. Martin Connolly, the foreman, thought the place was dangerous, and had stationed his assistant on the bank to give warning when trains approached. A milk train came along,
 
 Der of citizens living thereabouts stopped on a big wooden bridge that runs over the tracks at the cut for the purpose of watching the train. They noticed that no attention was paid to the train by the men or the foreman in charge. There were about thirty men huddled together in one spot shovelling the broken stone on to the track and tamping it under the ties Then, as the milk train was passing, the whistle on the Chicago express then several minutes late, and running at lightning speed, was heard as ,1,o IL I. spectators on the bridge could hear the whis- tie, but it was plain that no one in the gang of workmen heard it, for they kept right on with their work The express thundered into the cut and around the curve past the milk train, and had got we'll on it's way down the grade toward the men before the engineer seemed to see them. At the same moment some of the Italians seemed to know their danger. Three were seen to fling themselves from the tracks some threw up their arms imploringly and stood still, while some fell on their knees. The train ploughed into the writhing group.
 In an instant the air around the eng zine was filled with the bodies of the men who had been at work. One man was thrown against the last car of the milk train, and, bounding back fell under the wheels of the express and feet into the air, and fell back, alighting on top of the first car of the express, whence the body rolled off to the roadbed. A third body was thrown forty feet out to one side and over stone wall at the foot of the west side of the embankment, where it landed on the grass in the meadow. The greater amount were thrown forward and to one side, where they move d down the weeds that grew down the embank- ment, and covered the broken rock with blood. Even those who were not on the track were struck by the flying bodies of their comrades and hurled down the bank. Of the whole number at work not one remained standing. The tracks were wet, and the express train swept around the curve to the west and into Hohokus before her headway could be checked. When she had gone, the men who remained not seriously hurt got up, with screams and walls and climbed up the bank The groans of the wounded were added to the cries of tho others, and MT. Jacob Bamper, whose train reached the scene a minute later, says that those with their heads crushed, tried vainly to arise, and so struggling to get away from the track, died miserably. One man seized Bamper by the wrist, and while striving to say something fell back dead.
 Rough stretchers were hastily constructed and such of the wounded as could not walk were taken on them to the cars. Then the dead were gathered togather, and the limbs that were strewn about were placed as Tar as possible with the bodies to which they be- longed. When the men went to look after the man who had been thrown over into the field by the force of the shock, they were surprised to find him sitting up, suffering chiefly from a broken arm. Another, who had had hls shou- der broken, refused to allow any one to toucn him as he lay at the foot of the bank, and final ly got up and walked down the track until he reached 8 small bridge over sunken road, when he got under the bridge and sat down until the train was ready to take him to Pat erson.
 The railroad officials attribute the disaster o the want of intelligence of the men, and t.e noise occasioned by the milk train. They did not seem to understand the frantic signals of danger made by the assistant foreman, who wac stationed on the bank, nor did they hear bis sboute